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Firearms use triggers to initiate the firing of a cartridge seated within the gun barrel chamber.This is accomplished by actuating a striking device through a combination of mainspring (which stores elastic energy), a trap mechanism that can hold the spring under tension, an intermediate mechanism to transmit the kinetic energy from the spring releasing, and a firing pin to eventually strike ...
When the trigger is pulled, the cock, which holds a shaped piece of flint clamped in a set of jaws with a scrap of leather or thin piece of lead, snaps forward causing the flint to scrape downward along the frizzen's face (historically called the 'battery'), throwing it forward into the open position and exposing the priming powder.
The Model 1816 had a 42-inch (107 cm) long .69 caliber smoothbore barrel, similar to the Model 1812, but had a longer lock plate, a shorter trigger guard, and a longer bayonet than the Model 1812. The Model 1816 also had a more straight lined stock. The overall length of the weapon was 58 inches (147 cm). [3]
Flintlock pistol in "Queen Anne" layout, made in Lausanne by Galliard, c. 1760. On display at Morges military museum. Flintlock pistols were used as self-defense weapons and as a military arm. Their effective range was short, and they were frequently used as an adjunct to a sword or cutlass. Pistols were usually smoothbore although some rifled ...
A variation is the trigger disconnect which prevents the gun from firing until the gun has not only been fully and completely cycled, but the trigger is released and squeezed again. This defines the behavior of semi-automatic firearms which require a separate trigger pull to fire each successive cartridge and ready the next, and this is the ...
The Model 1861 had a general effective range of 200 to 400 yards (180–370 m) but could reliably hit man-sized targets out to 500 yards (460 m) when used by marksmen, and used percussion caps which were much more reliable and weather resistant to fire (rather than the flintlocks of the 18th century; the last U.S. flintlock musket was the ...
Depressing the trigger causes the sear to be drawn inward and release the cock. This type of sear was used in firelocks prior to the advent of the true flintlock. The next advance in firearm design was the snaplock, which used flint striking steel to generate the spark. The flint is held in a rotating, spring-loaded arm called the cock.
One hypothesis is that the "Brown Bess" was named after Elizabeth I of England, but this lacks support.Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries, traces the name to at least the 1760s, and his research suggests the name was adopted from slang for a mistress, prostitute, or lowly woman who also appear in period sources referred to as "Brown Bess".